JR-Publications-Sudan-Handbook-1

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338 thE sudan handbook

worked briefly for Sudan railways before starting his own engineering
business. In 1945 he founded, with a small group of like-minded friends,
the Republican Party, a nationalist party that opposed colonial rule and
published a series of inflammatory pamphlets which led to his arrest
and brief imprisonment in 1946. Later that year he was again imprisoned
after organizing a public demonstration in Rufaa. During this second
period in prison, he underwent a spiritual transformation and devel-
oped a new, mystical interpretation of Islam. The Republican Party was
transformed from a political party into an organization known as the
Republican Brothers to promulgate this new concept of Islam, which
they did throughout the 1970s and 1980s through public lectures and
the distribution of their publications. In the latter days of the Nimeiri
government, he published a leaflet demanding the repeal of Nimeiri’s
‘September laws’ that introduced sharia. He was charged with apostasy
and publicly hanged in the courtyard of Kober Prison in Khartoum on
18 January 1985.

Malik AGaR LyRE. Soldier and politician. An Ingessana (Gamk), he
was educated at the University of Khartoum. He joined the SPLM/A in


  1. After the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement he became Minister
    of Investment in the Government of National Unity. In July 2007 he gave
    up this position to become the Governor of Blue Nile state. He won the
    governorship in the April 2010 elections. He is an outspoken advocate of
    increased autonomy for Blue Nile. He was selected as the first Chairman
    of the new party in northern Sudan to replace SPLM Northern Sector on
    8 July 2011, immediately prior to South Sudan’s independence.


MEk NimR (1745–1846). Traditional leader of the Jaaliyin tribe at
Shendi, then one of the kingdoms under the Funj Sultanate, in the
early nineteenth century. In 1821 he submitted without resistance to the
invading army of Ismail Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali, the Egyptian
ruler. But returning north a year later, Ismail is said to have slighted
Mek Nimr, striking him across the face with a pipe. Mek Nimr invited

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors Ismail and his soldiers to camp that night at Shendi, and when they were


(www.riftvalley.net).

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